What happened to equal opportunities?
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What happened to equal opportunities?
Just my usual grouse about stupid school homeworks that have been unnecessarily and badly "differentiated". We all received our year 2 maths homeworks this week - adding on a number line. Some of us have received things like 35 + 13, 58 + 19 (with never more than one in the tens column in the second number) and some of us have received things like 35 + 23, 58 + 31 etc i.e. with a variety of numbers in the tens column in the second number.
All are capable of doing both. And all can do additions like this by a variety of other methods - partitioning included (by all I mean the friends who have communicated about it - not necessarily the whole class).
What's the point of this stupid dumbing down for some kids and not others? And how can a teacher of a big class judge in one lesson which children are capable of which - even if a child seemed not to understand it in a lesson it might be nothing to do with their mathematical understanding - there are so many different reasons for "blockages" at that age. And if you don't then send them home with a decent worked example of what they maybe didn't grasp in class how is the gap ever going to be made up? Next week they'll be on to a different topic. It's just so silly.
They could have sent a homework which started off with the easier examples and worked up to the harder ones and left it up to the parents and children where to stop.
All are capable of doing both. And all can do additions like this by a variety of other methods - partitioning included (by all I mean the friends who have communicated about it - not necessarily the whole class).
What's the point of this stupid dumbing down for some kids and not others? And how can a teacher of a big class judge in one lesson which children are capable of which - even if a child seemed not to understand it in a lesson it might be nothing to do with their mathematical understanding - there are so many different reasons for "blockages" at that age. And if you don't then send them home with a decent worked example of what they maybe didn't grasp in class how is the gap ever going to be made up? Next week they'll be on to a different topic. It's just so silly.
They could have sent a homework which started off with the easier examples and worked up to the harder ones and left it up to the parents and children where to stop.
